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ACCESSIBILITY@MC
Tuesday Tips on creating accessible electronic information
November 25, 2014
How to make your websites, documents, course content, and videos accessible
INTRODUCTION
SECTION 508 1194.22(k) STANDARD
A text-only page, with equivalent information
or functionality, shall be provided to make a
web site comply with the provisions of this
part, when compliance cannot be
accomplished in any other way. The content
of the text-only page shall be updated
whenever the primary page changes
The Section 508 Standards are part of the Federal Acquisition Regulation
(FAR) and address access for people with physical, sensory, or cognitive
disabilities. They contain technical criteria specific to various types of
technologies and performance-based requirements which focus on functional
capabilities of covered products. Specific criteria cover software applications
and operating systems, web-based information and applications, computers,
telecommunications products, video and multi-media, and self-contained
closed products. Today we will address the topic of Text Only pages
Who could use this tip? Faculty, staff, Content Managers, Web Developers,
Multimedia/Audio–Visual presenters, and MCTV
Techniques for Addressing Accessibility – Text Only Page
Introduction
One of the myths of web accessibility is that people with disabilities benefit from text-only versions. The truth
is that practically nobody with a disability benefits in any way from a text-only version at all. Text-only
versions may be of some benefit to people with slow Internet connections, but not to people with disabilities.
In almost every case, it would be better to fix the original version than to create an alternative text-only
version.
Why Some People Think Text-only pages are Accessible
Web accessibility novices are usually most familiar with the accessibility issues relevant to blindness. When
they think of web accessibility, they think of screen readers and alt text for images. They don't think nearly
as much about people who are deaf, people with motor disabilities, or people with seizure disorders, colorblindness, low vision, or cognitive disabilities. With this heavy bias toward blindness, it makes sense that a
text-only version could benefit users who don't need images, graphics or illustrations. According to this logic,
creating a text-only version could save developers some effort (and money) because they wouldn't have to
insert graphics, and wouldn't have to add alt text for them. Parts of this logic are true. People who can't see
graphics don't need graphics. Adding alt text is an extra step that could be avoided by not including any
graphics at all. Other parts of this logic, however, don't hold true.
People with disabilities face many accessibility barriers when they try to access websites. One common
barrier is a lack of meaningful text descriptions for graphical elements on a website, which affects individuals
with visual impairments who use screen readers. Another common issue is related to the use of keyboard
versus mouse controls. If website content is only available via the computer mouse, people with physical
disabilities may not be able to access it. In addition, complex web pages that contain many elements such
as animation, video, and audio and that have confusing or inconsistent layouts can be difficult for people
with disabilities to access.
Some website developers, in an effort to make their websites accessible, provide two versions of their
website—the "regular" or primary version and a text-only version, which contains the text of the website
without any associated graphics or media files. However, there are serious drawbacks to this approach.
ACCESSIBILITY@MC
Tuesday Tips on creating accessible electronic information
November 25, 2014
How to make your websites, documents, course content, and videos accessible
Because additional text-only websites can be expensive and difficult to maintain, visitors are concerned that
the text-only site may not be updated as regularly as the primary site. Often, text-only sites are also not fully
accessible.
Many web developers believe that a text-only version of a website completely addresses issues of
accessibility. In fact, while text-only sites are usually accessible to a person using a screen reader, users
with partial sight, learning or cognitive disabilities, limited hand use, or hearing impairments may find the
text-only site as difficult if not even more difficult to access than the regular site. These users are better
served by a web page that is consistently organized and laid out and that allows them to resize the text and
graphics, access audio content in multiple ways, and navigate the site by using the keyboard alone. It is
worth noting that people with and without disabilities may have bandwidth limitations or old hardware and
software and may have difficulty accessing complex websites. Accessible web design improves access for
these people as well.
The Case against Text-only Versions
Bias against the full spectrum of disability types
The most important argument against text-only versions is that they do not accomplish what they are
intended to accomplish. Text-only versions accommodate only one kind of disability: blindness. Web sites
with text-only versions are evidence that the site's designers do not understand web accessibility. They may
have created the text-only version thinking they were making the page accessible, but they neglected to
address the needs of all other disability types.
The need for graphics and visual presentation
Consider people with dyslexia or cognitive disabilities. How can a page full of text—and only text—increase
accessibility for these individuals? Some of these individuals could benefit greatly from more graphics, more
multimedia, and more CSS styling. A text-only site is quite counter-productive in these cases, and is actually
less accessible than the original graphical version.
"Regular" web pages are more transformable
In a sense, the regular version of a web page—even if it includes graphics and styles—is already a text-only
version. Screen readers can only read text, so they ignore the graphical and stylistic elements of web
content. Screen readers don't attempt to interpret the visual information of an image, they simply read the alt
attribute, which is already in a "text-only" format. For the most part, the visual presentation and CSS styles
have no impact whatsoever on the way a screen reader reads the content. In other words, what screen
reader users experience is a text-only version of the web page. The full version was transformed into a textonly version.
However, there are no technologies available to the average consumer to transform text-only versions into
graphical versions, or to create appropriate styles where none existed before. Text-only versions are not
easily transformable into other formats.
"Separate but equal"
Another important argument against text-only versions is that it creates a kind of Internet apartheid of
supposed "separate but equal" versions of content. As with racially segregated classrooms, abilityseparated web sites are rarely equal when separate. Designers rarely spend the time and effort necessary
to make text-only versions as useful or as robust as the regular versions. They often leave out important
ACCESSIBILITY@MC
Tuesday Tips on creating accessible electronic information
November 25, 2014
How to make your websites, documents, course content, and videos accessible
information entirely. On a psychological level, text-only versions send a message to people with disabilities:
"You can't come in the front door. Try the back door instead." Relegating a class of people to a secondclass status may not be the intention behind text-only versions, but sometimes it is the result nevertheless.
False sense of security
A third problem is that text-only sites can give developers a false sense of security. They might think that,
with their text-only version, they have finished their accessibility obligations. They may not think to take
additional measures, like captioning their videos, adding illustrations to the main version where necessary,
or even check for missing alt text for images. Accessibility is not something that can be solved once and for
all with the implementation of any one solution. Accessibility requires careful planning, and continual
vigilance. Having a supposed solution to the problem may lull developers into thinking that they no longer
have to engage in keeping accessibility in mind.
Difficult to maintain
Another problem with text-only sites is that they create a situation where an organization has to maintain
and update two parallel websites. Often, due to time and financial constraints, the text-only page is not kept
up to date. With an outdated text-only page, the current content of the primary page is still inaccessible. At
this time, there is software available that can create and/or update text-only pages automatically, but the
updated pages still need to be checked for clarity, and many users distrust that this check has been done.
Some developers have created sophisticated systems to ensure that text-only versions are kept up-to-date
with the regular versions. Some keep the content in a database and serve it out through different templates
and/or style sheets. Others use the text transcoders of third-party vendors to accomplish the same goal.
With these sorts of systems in place, the issues of maintenance may be solved, but they do not negate the
other issues with using text-only versions.
The web standards community is currently working toward creating a World Wide Web where content will be
entirely separate from presentation and will be delivered to users in the form that makes most sense for the
individual user and the user's technology (e. g., screen reader, web browser, wireless phone, handheld
computer). In fact, there are many database-driven websites on which text and graphic versions are
automatically generated on the fly. However, until this practice becomes widespread, the problems with textonly pages will continue to keep many blind users (the primary target of text-only pages) from using them.
When to Use Text-only Versions
Despite all of the arguments against text-only sites, web developers may, on rare occasions, be faced with
situations that might call for a text-only solution. Perhaps an interactive multimedia element would be too
difficult to make accessible to screen readers. A text-only version may serve as a fallback means of trying to
explain what the interactive multimedia element was trying to accomplish. Does this achieve true
accessibility? Is the text-only version the equivalent of a complex interactive multimedia element? No of
course not. In these cases, though, something is usually better than nothing, and a text-only version is at
least a method of providing something. Some might argue that the multimedia element should either be
eliminated or redesigned so that it can be made accessible to screen reader users. They have a point.
Where possible, multimedia should be made directly accessible. On the other hand, sometimes these
issues are out of the developer's control—for example, if the multimedia element was created by a third
party. Just be careful. Use text-only versions to accommodate certain types of disabilities when necessary,
but only when necessary.
REFERENCE: WEBAIM, (http://webaim.org/articles/design/textonly)
ACCESSIBILITY@MC
Tuesday Tips on creating accessible electronic information
November 25, 2014
How to make your websites, documents, course content, and videos accessible
Are text-only web pages an accessible alternative?
The World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, state that text-only pages
should only be used as a last resort:
[Priority 1, Check point 11.4] If, after best efforts, you cannot create an accessible page, provide a link to an
alternative page that uses W3C technologies, is accessible, has equivalent information (or functionality),
and is updated as often as the inaccessible (original) page. Techniques for checkpoint 11.4
Overall, it is much more effective, easier, and less expensive to design and create one accessible web site
from the beginning than to create and maintain parallel sites. The Section 508 Standards and the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines are excellent resources for learning to design accessible web sites.
Need HELP with making your
website or document
accessible?
Go to Accessibility@MC or contact
Luis Gorres,
Accessibility Coordinator at
[email protected]
or at 240-567-4370
VALIDATION TECHNIQUES
For more information of test tools see resources at Accessibility@MC.
Procedure
Check for a link on the non-accessible webpage to a text-only version
with equivalent content
Results
The text-only version provides equivalent content and is up-to-date
with the main version.